32 however, is in the form of this quilt panel," the letter went on "Bob's name is among his beloved stars." Some panels were as neatly and gaily sewn as heraldic flags, like Joel Rogers' yellow plate and two red to- matoes on a purple field. Others seemed totemic, like Aaron Miller's, on which a pair of red silk pajamas printed with herons was emblazoned; Aaron Miller had designed and sewn the pajamas before his death. On one wall, eight panels, stitched into a vast square, brought improbable people to- gether; for instance, Russell Viera, a dress collector and hotel banquet cap- tain, was remembered with a tucked and folded black taffeta evening gown sewn onto purple cotton, and next to his panel was one for Jan (Patat) Luxwolder, a Dutch restaurant owner famous for his potatoes, whose friends had sewn on foam-rubber French fries, a silk-screened map of Amster- dam, and a photograph of a handsome, healthy man leaning against a brick wall in the sun. Jones, who told me he used to work as a lobbyist for the Friends Commit- tee on Legislation, said he plans to dis- play the gigantic quilt on the Capitol Mall during a gay-rights demonstra- tion in mid-October; it will cover four-fifths of an acre. He conceived of the quilt two years ago, but nothing much came of it until this February, when he made one of the first panels -for Marvin Feldman, his best friend of fourteen years. As he led me to the farthest corner of the storefront to show me the panel, he described a visit he had made last October to Feldman and his parents in Providence, Rhode Island, two weeks before his friend died. Feldman had had AIDS for two years, and he was so thin that he reminded Jones of photographs of people in concentration camps. At night, Jones slept in a middle bed- room. On one side he could hear Mar- vin Feldman breathing; on the other he could hear Marvin's parents, who had been brave and cheerful during the day, weeping and comforting each other. When Feldman went into a coma, Jones flew back to California and his job. He missed his friend's funeral; he doesn't go to funerals anymore. "Yet I needed a funeral for Marvin," he said as we stood in front of the panel. "I didn't handle his death very well. I kept dreaming about him, and for a while I felt that everyone else I cared about was going to die, too." Jones was "still in the dol- drums" when he went into his back yard four months later with stencils, a piece of dark cloth, and cans of spray paint left over from old political cam- paigns. "It was part of a healing process," he said. "I was there to think about Marvin, but not to cry- to make something tangible instead." The panel showed Marvin Feld- man's name in white on a dark-gray background dotted with pink triangles that overlapped to form six-pointed stars. "Afterward, I had a real sense of resolution and completion," Jones said. "I still miss Marvin, but I don't think about him with the same sense of de- spair. " . A CRANKY old tennis player we know (fair backhand, good lob, no serve) writes: When I was a kid, you played tennis on a lumpy clay court with lots of weeds. The lines were made of white cloth, were held down loosely by large staples, and had to be swept frequently. Y ou watered the court with a hose from time to time, then rolled it with a rusty hollow roller that was the size of a barrel and had a handle like a lawn- mower's. You half filled the roller with water, then pushed it screeching and clanking around the court. When you played a set of tennis with somebody, you were expected to be polite, al- though not as polite as players at F or- est Hills, where tournaments were conducted with the decorum of Miss Bigelow's dance class. All this has changed, of course, and big-time tour- naments today are remembered not for the tennis but for the tantrums. After watching a surfeit of outbursts at this year's Open, I have arrived at a sug- gestion for improving player behavior. II IIII Illl 11 TOl.Lver OCTOBER. 5,1987 Change the tournament rules, as fol- lows: 1. Each match will be provided with only one can of tennis balls. 2. There will be no ball boys, ball girls, or officials. Each player will have to walk around the court picking up tennis balls, the way the rest of us do. If a player about to serve does not have enoug h balls on his side of the court, he will have to callout, "Excuse me, Ivan [or whoever], but may I have another ball?" Ivan will reply, "Sure, John-just a moment." He will go fetch the ball and hit it over to John. "Thank you, Ivan," John will say, or he may not receive such prompt assistance the next time. John serves, and I van says, "I'm afraid that one was a bit out." "Are you sure?" says John. "It felt pretty good. Y ou don't happen to see a mark on the line, do you?" "N 0, I don't," replies Ivan. "But why don't you just play it again? Two serves coming." "Thanks, Ivan," says John "N 0 problem," says Ivan. John serves. "Wow! What a beautiful serve'" cries I van. "Just lucky," says John. . . Alice Tully ALICE TULLY, who is the closest ^ thing we have to a Medici in these egalitarian times, celebrat- ed her eighty-fifth birthday recently with a dinner in her honor at the Morgan Library, a lieder recital by Hermann Prey at Alice Tully Hall, and an avalanche of good wishes from friends and admirers. Miss Tully's role in the arts is a unique one, because she combines the skills of a trained singer with the resources of a con- siderable fortune. (Her grandfather Amory Houghton was the founder of Corning Glass. ) She sits on some twenty boards and councils involved with music, art, education, and medi- cine, and takes an active role in nearly all of them. She has subsidized young singers, helped to found the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and financed the hall that bears her name She is, as William Schuman remarked in a speech during the birthday con- cert, "especially to be valued, because patronage born of understanding and